Samsung Captivate Android Phone

I got this phone new on 9Aug2010 and had to place an order for a replacement the next day. Maybe I got a bad one…I don’t know. I do know it was frustrating to try to navigate through the screens as it kept reverting back to the home screen, no matter what I did. Behavior just seemed erratic. A replacement phone is on its way, so the jury is out still on how well this phone will perform. I will update my review after round two…

Chas
Rating: 3 / 5

First Off Amazon should only allow reviews from people who purchased the items from there site.

I usually will only review items that I have purchased directly from amazon as verifiable proof of my purchase for the people reading the review, But all these bogus reviews made me want to add my 2cents. I have been using an Iphone 3g for awhile now and the cons for me have me looking for an Iphone replacement. So far I have tried the n97 mini which I would still own if it wasn’t for the battery life. also tried the X6, the Backflip, and the Captivate. I bought and returned the captivate from best buy. Amazon has better pricing.

Ok now for the Captivate

PROS

Display

Battery Life was good (equal to Iphone 3g)

Android was easy to use and figure out

CONS (for me)

No in box software

bad manual

Lack of help on Samsung site

file transfer to phone

not outlook compatible

I returned this phone because there wasn’t anyway to transfer files to phone without an external memory card. I downloaded drivers and Kies program from Samsung. Neither would work in getting the phone to connect to my computers <— notice the s I have 5 computers from xp to vista to windows 7 and none would connect. To get my 400 or so work contacts to the phone I had to create a gmail account, go to outlook and export contacts to comma separated value, then import those to gmail—-what a pain, after that the phone syncs with gmail on its own. I would have loved to keep this phone but this just wasnt an easy thing to deal with. I actually use my phone all day at work and I expect to charge a battery with the amount of use I an doing. But I really think they released this phone just to get it out there.
Rating: 3 / 5

I returned my iphone 4 (which I saw bars go down when held in death grip but did not drop calls) since I wanted the white one and it sounded like in a few days it would be available.

Well it got pushed back and nobody in Los Angeles has a iphone 4 to sell.

So I bought the Samsung Captivate since I am in no way a apple guy (Big PC/Microsoft guy!).

The pros:

Thin nice and light design.

Beautiful screen-size is perfect with Evo being too big and iphone a bit too small.

Video’s and pictures look great and alive!

Camera takes great pictures and has so many cool controls.

Love the widgets and shortcuts you can put on the front of the phone.

Lots of deep customization of things..sometimes tooo much!

Gallery brings in pictures from places you didnt think you had pictures.

Really cool moving wallpapers..which can be a con (see later).

Cons:

Battery life- I had a fully charged Captivate and started day at 7:30AM and I had warning about battery low at 3:00PM. I was told on forums to make wallpaper regular black screen and get Advanced Task Killer. It was a bit better but have to do lots of juggling to get to 5-6PM without sweating to get to car and plug into charger. I dont want to carry a extra battery or add on a plump extended battery.

Iphone 3GS and 4 last me whole day and have 20% left when I get home with streaming news on drive home not charging.

Mail client- If you are using Exchange for work and have subfolders…forget it!

The subfolder names are arranged at the top for you to swipe alpha to the right folder. To make it worst the RSS feed folders are in there too.

Then, I cant move messages to another folder. I read the forums and was suggested to get a different app. Ok not bad but the app was $15! I expect a $200 smartphone to handle email out of the box.

GPS-there is a bug and I cant use the free turn by turn directions. I dont feel so bad for having bought Navigon for iphone at $29 that at least worked all the time.

The strip of buttons (Options – Home – Back – Search) at the bottom of the phone: these get you around and they are laggy. They do not respond fast enough. These should have been physical buttons not touch sensitive ones.

Multitasking-Its great to multitask but the phone gets slow when too many apps are open like Windows mobile use to be. I did get an app to help with that but I would have thought Android would have handled this on its own. It says it does but phone got slow and now I need to open this app to kill what is open. Though I saw some setting where every hour it can do it for you.

Apps- I think there is a good selection of apps and it should improve as it goes, but. THe apps are certainly not as polished as on the iphone and some have lot less functionality. example: the Chase bank app on iphone let me take a picture of a check made out to me and it would get the routing # and $ amount and get deposited in my account. Their android app doesnt do this. I called Chase and gave them hell. They said they will “one day support more mobile devices” well great, when?

There are a few more little things but just cosmetic and dont affect the fucntionality of the phone.

I will give this phone 15 more days and then I will return it. But I will research and see if I can find ways to keep this phone. Right now if I had to decide, I’d box this up and pay my $35 restocking fee and get back in an iphone 4.

If you think this is just me go to a n d r o i d f o r u m s . c o m and see the Captivate forum for people who are in same boat as me.

If you have not had iphone 3GS or 4 this phone seems great and wonderful. But if you are on AT&T why not get better for same price? Thats what I am asking myself.
Rating: 3 / 5

In my opinion the phone is great but fails to deliver on some of the key things like the GPS. The captivate is lighter than iphone 4 and the screen resolution is great but i think the look and feel of iphone 4 is bettter. The touch screen is also responsive, the swipe keyboard makes typing lot easier.

It’s been almost a week since I got the phone, the GPS doesn’t work at all. The ‘menu’,'home’,'back’,'search’ button on the bottom of the phone is not very responsive and you’ll have to press it multiple times.I often get ‘network error’ when i try to use the internet or any app that uses internet with Wi-Fi connection.

Research the GPS issue in other blogs/websites before buying this phone.

Rating: 3 / 5

im not a big phone geek but this phone is sooo user friendly and easey to use!! i have always gone with samsung phones because of there pressure sensitive screens instead of the usual heat sensitive screens. i do love pressure sensitive screens because there easey to use with my nails. the captivate is NOT pressure sensitive but the sreen is so huge that texting is not a problem for me! It also has the cool talk to text feature on the android keyboard witch means i dont have to type at all!!!! this phone is sooo fun i havent put it down!!!! love it buy this phone!!!
Rating: 5 / 5